


A New Face

by ughdotcom



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Wolf Rose Tyler, Canon Rewrite, Don't copy to another site, Drunken Confessions, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Inhuman Rose Tyler, Love Confessions, M/M, Other, Pining, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Requited Unrequited Love, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28122372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ughdotcom/pseuds/ughdotcom
Summary: It all goes wrong after Bad Wolf - or does it?
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Jack Harkness/Rose Tyler, The Doctor/Jack Harkness/Rose Tyler
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	A New Face

**Author's Note:**

  * For [THEfanofstuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/THEfanofstuff/gifts).



> It's not queerplatonic??? For once!

The Doctor has to watch this, he realizes the minute Rose steps out of the TARDIS and tells him what happened. Whatever happens to her, or to him, he has to watch. And he doesn’t know what he can do.

“Rose, you've got to stop this. You've got to stop this now. You've got the entire vortex running through your head. You're going to burn.” he begs, but Rose doesn’t stop. And he doesn’t know if he can stop her.

He watches as she crumbles every single Dalek.

“Rose, you've done it. Now stop. Just let go.” The Doctor says, panic coursing through his voice. He knows what the time vortex does. He’s always known.

“How can I let go of this? I bring life.” He knows, in the back of his mind, what she means. He pretends he doesn’t, this isn’t the time to be happy that someone lived.

“But this is wrong! You can't control life and death.” please, he can’t have her die, not like this, not for him.

“But I can. The sun and the moon, the day and night. But why do they hurt?”

“The power's going to kill you and it's my fault.” He’s crying now, and he’s not sure when that happened.

“I can see everything. All that is, all that was, all that ever could be.” he wanted to keep her safe, and instead in all her stubborn, wild, beauty she ruined herself. He doesn’t know if he can save her. But he has to try. He can take it out of her, die and regenerate. He can try.

“That's what I see. All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?”

“My head.” she says, tears falling down her face.

“Come here.” he holds out his arms for her, and she steps forward.

“It’s killing me.”

“I think you need a doctor.” he says, and he kisses her softly, something he’s always wanted to do. He feels it pour back into him, more than he can hold without pain, and he lets her collapse into his arms. Softly, he breathes it back into the TARDIS, but he’s dying, he knows he is. He lifts her up and carries her into the TARDIS, and lets it start.

Jack, over where he is, is confused. He died, and he’s no longer dead. The Daleks were alive, and winning, and they’re no longer alive.

He picks up the dust, what he’s pretty sure is what’s left of the Daleks, and lets it trickle through his fingers.

Then he hears it, the engines. He stands up and runs. It’s almost gone when he reaches it, but what the hell? He just died for The Doctor and Rose, and he’ll do it again. He grabs onto the door handles and lets his body be carried through the time vortex with the TARDIS.

Inside the TARDIS, unknowing of what is happening outside, unknowing of  _ who _ is happening outside, the Doctor apologizes. And he says goodbye. He knows, technically, that regeneration isn’t dying, but he also knows that very few people see him as the same after regeneration.

“Doctor!” Rose cries as he bends over in pain.

“Stay away.” he says through gritted teeth.

“Doctor, tell me what’s going on?” and there she is, Rose, full of fire. He’s going to miss her.

“I absorbed all the energy of the Time Vortex, and no one's meant to do that. Every cell in my body's dying.” he didn’t mean to be that honest.

“Can’t you do something?” she asks.

“Yeah, I'm doing it now. Time Lords have this little trick, it's sort of a way of cheating death. Except it means I'm going to change, and I'm not going to see you again. Not like this. Not with this daft old face. And before I go-”

“Don’t say that!” Rose protests, and it makes him want to cry. Even if he isn’t dying, to him and to her it must be similar.

“Rose, before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And do you know what? So was I.”

He screams in pain, and when the golden light is gone he’s left standing there. Well, he’s left standing there as a different person.

“Hello. Okay.” he feels around in his mouth “Ooo, new teeth. That's weird. So, where was I? Oh, that's right. Barcelona.”

It’s Christmas Eve when Mickey hears the sound. The familiar whooshing of the TARDIS. He runs as fast as he can towards the street, waving at Jackie.

“Mickey!” she yells, and he might have never been so glad to see her.

“Jackie, it's the Tardis!” He grins in delight.

“I know, I know, I heard it. She's alive, Mickey. I said so, didn't I? She's alive!”

“Just shut up a minute.” he says, and they realize it at the same time. Even though they know the TARDIS is coming, it isn’t anywhere they can see it.

“Well where is it then?” Jackie asks, and it comes into sight, falling out of the air, careening and bumping into things before landing in a pile of waste bins. Something, or someone, seems to fall off the side right before it lands, maybe a block or so away. Mickey and Jackie frown over at it before turning back to the TARDIS as the doors bang open. A man they don’t know falls out, grabbing onto Jackie.

“Here we are then, London. Earth. The Solar System. We did it. Jackie. Mickey. Blimey! No, no, no, no, hold on. Wait there. I've got something to say. There was something I had to tell you, something important. What was it? No, hold on, hold on. Hold on, shush, shush, shush, shush. Oh, I know! Merry Christmas!” the man passes out and hits the floor.

Rose comes out of the TARDIS, panicked. “What happened? Is he all right?” she asks, looking down at the man.

“I don't know, he just keeled over. But who is he? Where's the Doctor?” Mickey explains, looking at his ex girlfriend.

“That’s him, right in front of you. That’s the Doctor.”

“I’m sorry that’s what?” a voice asks, coming from behind them. Rose looks up to see Jack, who seems to have run over towards them, having fallen off the TARDIS.

“That’s the Doctor.” Rose says, and when she looks at Jack there are tears in her eyes.

They carry him inside, Jack at his head and Rose at his feet. Jack could probably lift the Doctor in his arms, but since he just traveled unprotected through the time vortex, Rose won’t let him.

They set him on the spare bed, undressing him from the old body’s clothes, clothes that make Rose tear up when she looks at them and sets the leather jacket on a chair.

“Mum, can you get a stethoscope?” Rose asks Jackie, trying to listen to the Doctor’s hearts. She can hear them already, clear as day, but that shouldn’t be possible, so she refuses to believe it.

Jackie sighs, but she leaves the room, leaving Jack and Rose sitting by the Doctor’s bed.

“What happened?” Jack asks, resting his hand on the Doctor’s arm.

“I don’t know.” Rose admits, wishing she could make herself useful. “He said he took in the whole time vortex. And… I think I did too. He… I think he took it out of me.” she starts crying. “It’s my fault.”

Jack moves closer to her and wipes away her tears, setting an arm on her arm. “Hey, don’t cry. It’s not time for crying now. Remember what I said, Rose, you are worth dying for.”

Rose smiles at him, drying her eyes. He smiles back.

“Here we go. Tina the cleaner's got this lodger, a medical student, and she was fast asleep, so I just took it. Though I still say we should take him to hospital.” Jackie says, bustling into the room.

“We can't. They'd lock him up. They'd dissect him. One bottle of his blood could change the future of the human race.” she presses the stethoscope to the Doctor’s chest, and shushes Jackie.

“Both working.” Rose says, setting the stethoscope away. She had known that even before she put the cold metal to his chest, but she ignored that feeling. She couldn’t have known that. It didn’t make any sense.

“What do you mean, both?” Jackie asks, crossing her arms.

“Well, he’s got two hearts.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Jackie scoffs.

“He does.” Jack says with a small breath of air, as close as he can get to a laugh.

“Anything else he's got two of?” Jackie jokes, her tone flat and unhumorous.

“Leave him alone.” Rose snaps, but Jack just forces a laugh.

“I’ll tell you when I find out.” the joke falls flat with all of them.

They leave the room, leaving the Doctor to lie alone in the bed. Rose opens the fridge, looking through the food, as Jack pours himself a glass of water.

“How can he go changing his face? Is that a different face or is he a different person?” Jackie asks.

“How should I know?” Rose cried before looking up at Jackie’s upset face “Sorry. The thing is I thought I knew him, Mum. I thought me and him were- And then he goes and does this. I keep forgetting he's not human. The big question is where'd you get a pair of men's pyjamas from?”

“Howard's been staying over.” Jackie admits, and Jack snorts so hard that the water falls out of his mouth.

“What, Howard from the market? How long's that been going on?” Jack leans back, content to watch the mother and daughter gossip.

“A month or so. First of all, he starts delivering to the door and I thought, that's a odd. Next thing you know, it's a bag of oranges-”

“Is that Harriet Jones?” Rose asks, moving out of the kitchen.

“Oh nevermind me.” Jackie says bitterly, and Jack pats her shoulder.

“I’m here for you.” he says, already following Rose into the sitting room. Jackie sighs and follows them.

“Why's she on the telly?” Rose questions, studying the woman intently.

“She's Prime Minister now. I'm eighteen quid a week better off. They're calling it Britain's Golden Age. I keep on saying my Rose has met her.”

“Did more than that. Stopped World War Three with her. Harriet Jones.” Rose shakes her head in disbelief.

“She’s the one with the Slitheen?” Jack asks. “The first time?”

Rose glances back at him and nods. “Yeah.”

They watch the TV as Harriet talks about the Mars mission.

“Mars isn’t very fun.” Rose says, turning the TV off.

“It isn’t.” Jack agrees. “You know what was better?”

“Genoria.” Rose says, nodding at him.

“Exactly!” Jack replies, not considering how Rose could have possibly known which planet. They hadn’t visited very many together, and informed guesses weren’t very hard. “The-” Jack pauses to see if Rose would finish his sentence again.

“Pink waterfalls.”

“Yes! They were amazing.”

“I still can’t believe that pink water is real.” Jack laughs. “Or any of the people there.” he smirks at her and she giggles.

“Shut up.” Jackie says. “I don’t want to know more.”

“I didn’t mean it that way!” Jack protests, knowing perfectly well that he meant it that way.

Mickey comes into the apartment. For a second, Rose and Jack expect there to be an emergency, so used to the TARDIS and the Doctor. But Mickey isn’t panicked or excited.

“Rose, I was wondering if you’d like to go Christmas shopping with me.” he says.

“Can Jack come?” Rose asks, glancing over at Jack, who has already latched onto the fact that Mickey wants to be alone with Rose.

“I think I’d like to really meet your mum.” Jack says with a grin. “She seems nice.”

Rose pouts at him for a second before turning back towards Mickey, who was still looking over at Jack. Jack sent him a wink, despite the fact that Jack knows that Mickey isn’t ever going to be enough for Rose. It’s sad, and unfortunate, but it’s true. It’s a poorly kept secret that Rose is in love with the Doctor.

It’s a well kept secret that Jack is in love with both of them.

Rose can’t help but feel like there’s something wrong the whole time she’s in the taxi with Mickey. But it’s probably just being home now at Christmas, with her somewhat ex boyfriend, and the Doctor possibly dying in the spare room.

Nothing more.

They stroll along the streets by the mall, not exactly going in anywhere or looking. Rose isn’t looking for more than presents for Jackie, Mickey, Jack, and possibly the Doctor, and Mickey already got the bulk of his presents.

“So what do you need? Twenty quid?” Mickey asks her, and she snaps back to present, having been distracted by the music playing by the band.

“Do you mind? I'll pay you back.”

“Call it a Christmas present.” Mickey says with a smile.

“God, I'm all out of synch. You just forget about Christmas and things in the Tardis. They don't exist. You get sort of timeless.” she misses the way Mickey tenses up as she speaks.

“Oh, yeah, that's fascinating, because I love hearing stories about the Tardis. Oh, go on Rose, tell us another one because I swear I could listen to it all day. Tardis this, Tardis that.” he might be joking, and he might be bitter, and neither of them can tell.

“Shut up.”

“Oh, and one time the Tardis landed in a big yellow garden full of balloons.”

“I’m not like that!”

“You so are!”

“Mmm, must drive you mad. I'm surprised you don't give up on me.” she doesn’t know why she’s even flirting, if you could call it flirting. She isn’t in love with him, she hasn’t been for a long time.

“Oh, that's the thing, isn't it? You can rely on me. I don't go changing my face.”

Rose’s face falls “Yeah. What if he’s dying?”

“Okay.”

“Sorry!”

“Just let it be Christmas. Can you do that? Just for a bit. You and me and Christmas. No Doctor, no bog monsters, no life or death.” Mickey says, and they both know it’s a tall order, and it probably won’t happen, can’t happen. Ever since they met the Doctor, it hadn’t been a possibility. They ignore it, for now.

“Okay.” Rose responds.

“Promise?”

“Yeah!”

“Right! What're you going to get for your mum?” they continue walking for a few seconds, Rose not answering, unsure of the answer. “ I'm round there all the time now, you know. She does my dinner on a Sunday, talks about you all afternoon, yap yap yap.” Mickey admits.

Rose opens her mouth to speak, before spinning around and facing the band, which was following them. They don’t have faces, only masks. They stop playing, and Rose grabs Mickey, pulling them both behind a stall. One of the Santas shoots fire out of his trombone. The market erupts in screams, and Rose flinches.

“It's us! They're after us!” she cries out, dragging Mickey along with her.

“What's going on? What've we done? Why are they after us?” Mickey asks as she summons a taxi.

“They're after the Doctor.” Rose says, and Mickey dies inside, for the thousandth time.

“I can't even go shopping with you. We get attacked by a brass band. Who're you phoning?” he complains.

“My mum.” Rose answers, groaning when she gets the busy signal. “Get off the phone!”

“Who were those Santa things?”

“I don't know. But think about it. They were after us. What's important about us? Well, nothing, except the one thing we've got tucked up in bed. The Doctor.”

Back at the flat, Jack is sipping hot chocolate as Jackie chats on the phone. He’d probably already stolen enough liquids from the Tylers’ kitchen to drown a grown man, but he had died. Twice. He had no clue how dehydrating that could be.

“Oh, no. Don't come round, darling. No, flat's all topsy turvy. Yeah, she just barges in and litters the place. Yeah. No, I'll come round and see you on Boxing day.” she says as she takes some tea and sets it next to the Doctor’s bed. “So, save us a chipolata.” she steps out of the spare room as Mickey and Rose come barrelling into the door.

“Get off the phone.” Rose orders Jackie, who frowns.

“It's only Bev. She says hello.”

“Bev? Yeah. Look, it'll have to wait. Right, it's not safe. We've got to get out. Where can we go?”

Jack comes out of the kitchen, interrupting whatever anyone is going to say. “Rose. What happened?”

“A band of Santas shot fire at us. They’re after the Doctor.”

“Can’t it ever be me they’re after?” Jack joked. “So we’ve got to go before they find us here, is that right?”

“My mate Stan, he'll put us up.”

“That's only two streets away. What about Mo? Where's she living now?”

“I don't know. Peak District.” Jackie says, obviously still confused about what’s happening.

“Well, we'll go to cousin Mo's then.” Rose says, presenting the fact like it’s obvious. Then she glances over at the tree sitting pretty in the living room, bright green and fresh. “Mum. Where'd you get that tree? That's a new tree. Where'd you get it?”

“I thought it was you.”

“How can it be me?”

“Well, you went shopping. There was a ring at the door, and there it was!” Jackie defends herself.

“No that wasn’t me.”

“Then who was it?” Jackie says, and the tree lights up and starts playing Christmas music.

“Oh, you're kidding me.” Rose sighs at the same time that Jack says:

“Oh fuck me.”

“Maybe later.” Rose says tensely, and the tree starts to spin and move, cutting through wood as easily as if it was paper.

“Get out! Go, go! Get out!” Mickey yells, picking up a chair as if it would actually do anything to defeat the spinning tree. Jackie tries to tug Rose to the front door, but Rose and Jack are already moving towards the guest room.

“We've got to save the Doctor.” Rose says apologetically.

“What're you doing?” Jackie cries.

“We can't just leave him.”

Jackie frowns, before turning back to where Mickey is still trying to fend off the tree. “Mickey!” she shouts as the tree turns the chair he’s holding into wood chips. “Leave it! Get out! Get out!”

“Mickey!” Rose yells, obviously conflicted between him and the Doctor.

“Get out of there!” Jackie beckons him. “No, leave him. Just leave him!”

“Mickey!” Jack yells, and it might be that that makes Jackie and Mickey enter the spare room, the stranger yelling for them.

They crowd into the room, and Jack helps Jackie and Mickey push the wardrobe against the door.

“Doctor, wake up!” Rose yells. Nothing happens with the man in the bed.

“Doctor!” Jack says sternly, not expecting anything to come out of it. Nothing does. The tree smashes through the door and wardrobe.

Jack moves to Rose’s side as she leans down over the Doctor. “Help me.” she breathes into his ear, and it’s so painstakingly intimate that Jack doesn’t want to interrupt. But he hasn’t gotten this far without denying that they could never love him, so he speaks too.

“Help  _ us _ .” he and Rose face each other and smile at each other in bliss, meeting eyes, and they both, for a second, know each other’s secrets.

The Doctor’s eyes open suddenly, and he sits up and points the sonic screwdriver at the tree, which explodes, causing everyone but him to flich. “Remote control. But who's controlling it?” he says, and Jack and Rose are overcome with so much relief that it takes a few moments to remember that this might not be their Doctor.

He jumps out of the bed and pulls on a dressing gown, leading the group out onto the balcony. They look down onto the street, where the Santas stand, holding the remote control.

“That's them. What are they?” Mickey asks, and Rose and Jack sush him. The Doctor points the screwdriver at them, making them back away till they’re beamed up.

“They've just gone. What kind of rubbish were they? I mean, no offence, but they're not much cop if a sonic screwdriver's going to scare them off.” Mickey complains, making Jack snicker quietly.

“Pilot fish.” the Doctor says.

“What?” Rose asks, scrunching her eyebrows together.

“They were just pilot fish.” he says, before groaning in pain.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asks, moving quickly to his side, joined by Rose.

“You woke me up too soon. I'm still regenerating. I'm bursting with energy.” the Doctor explains, breathing out, golden sparkle exiting his mouth with his breath. “You see? The pilot fish could smell it a million miles away. So they eliminate the defence, that's you lot, and they carry me off. They could run their batteries on me for a couple of-  _ ow _ !”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Jackie exclaims as the Doctor cries out in pain.

“My head! I'm having a neuron implosion. I need-”

Jackie cuts him off almost immediately “What do you need?”

“I need-”

“Say it. Tell me, tell me, tell me.”

“I need-” he says again, and they continue, with the Doctor begging for something while Jackie interrupts, trying to help.

“I need you to shut up.” he finally growls at her.

“Oh, he hasn't changed that much, has he?” Jackie remarks.

“We haven't got much time. If there's pilot fish, then-” he gets distracted as he puts his hands in his pockets “Why's there an apple in my dressing gown?”

“Oh, that’s Howard. Sorry.” Jackie explains, as if that means anything to any of them.

“He keeps apples in his dressing gown?” the Doctor asks, confused.

“He gets hungry.”

“What, he gets hungry in his sleep?”

“Sometimes.” Jackie shrugs.

The Doctor scoffs, before groaning in pain again. “Brain collapsing. The pilot fish. The pilot fish means that something, something, something is coming.” he fainted again, this time in Jack’s arms, who lifts him up and carries him to bed, where Rose fusses over him.

The TV speaks about the space probe as Mickey googles the pilot fish.

“Any change?” Jackie asks Rose gently.

“He's worse. Just one heart beating.” Rose says, head hanging in defeat. Jack slips his hand into her’s and squeezes it. Jackie and Mickey don’t miss the gesture. They sit down on the couch, even if they aren’t interested in what’s on the TV.

“Here we go, pilot fish. Scavengers, like the Doctor said. Harmless. They're tiny. But the point is, the little fish swim alongside the big fish.” Mickey says.

“Do you mean like sharks?” Rose asks.

“Great big sharks. So, what the Doctor means is, we had them, now we get that.”

“So, something’s coming.” Jack says. “How long do you think till they get here?”

“There's no way of telling, but the pilot fish don't swim far from their daddy.”

“So it’s close?” Rose asks.

Jackie interrupts their conversation by remarking on the photo on the TV. “Funny sort of rocks.”

“That’s not rocks.” Rose says as she turns to face the television. The image is unmistakably aliens.

“Aliens. And if you have to guess, Rose?” Jack says.

“The sharks.”

After a few minutes of stunned silence and mild panic, Mickey says some of the first sane  _ and _ helpful words. “Rose. Take a look. I've got access to the military. They're tracking a spaceship. It's big, it's fast, and it's coming this way.” Rose and Jack move to behind him, and look down at the data.

“Coming for what, though? The Doctor?” Rose asks, but they all already have a glimmer of the answer.

“Have you seen them before?” Mickey asks.

“No.” Rose and Jack chorus.

The aliens start to speak, and Rose groans. “I don't understand what they're saying. The TARDIS translates alien languages inside my head, all the time, wherever I am.”

“So, why isn't it doing it now?”

“The Doctor, Rose.” Jack says. “It must be him.”

“Like he's part of the circuit, and he's, he's broken.” Rose responds.

“Exactly.” Jack says, smiling at her. He wonders how she’d react if she knew how badly he wants to grab her face, kiss her, and tell her that everything will be alright. He doesn’t have the excuse of going to his death this time, though.

Rose moves from by Jack and Mickey, over to the Doctor. “The Doctor wouldn't do this. The old Doctor, the proper Doctor, he'd wake up. He'd save us.” she says. Mickey follows her into the room, and outside Jack pretends not to hear her.

“You really love him, don't you?”

They don’t say anything else, and Jack sighs, knowing that it’s a yes. He wants Rose to love the Doctor, and the Doctor to love Rose, and it’s obvious that they do. He just wishes they loved him too.

The sun rises over London.

Outside the flat a man is walking by, blank faces. A woman is begging him to stop, but he doesn’t. “Sandra?” Rose asks her as she steps out of the flat with Mickey and Jack.

“He won't listen. He's just walking. He won't stop walking! There's this sort of light thing.” she tells them before turning back to the man “Jason? Stop it right now! Please, Jason, just stop.”

The three look down, looking over the entirety of the estate. People are all walking.

“We should follow them.” Rose says.

“We don’t know where they’re going!” Mickey protests, and Jack claps him on the back.

“That’s the fun part!”

It turns out the people are walking up to the roof, and they follow them up, standing back as the people stand on the edge.

“What do we do?” Mickey asks.

“Nothing. There's no one to save us. Not anymore.” Rose says, settling into the fact that the Doctor isn’t available, or even still the same Doctor. She loved him, but she loved  _ her _ Doctor, not this new one. She wonders how Jack does it, switching from person to person, because the fact the Doctor has even changed makes her sick. A small voice in the back of her head, that sounds soft and melodical, tells her that Jack doesn’t love every single person, and is in love with someone(s), but she dismisses it, muttering so low that neither Mickey nor Jack can hear her, “wishful thinking”. Not that they’d know what she meant. It made her mad, mad at the Doctor, mad at Jack, mad at the Daleks, mad at the concept of time, mad at herself.

Jack and Mickey took her hands, and led her down to the flat again, sitting down and staring at the news, as if it would do anything.

Harriet speaks as if she was meant to be Prime Minister, and at any other time Rose would be proud to know her, but she can’t. Not right now.

“But, ladies and gentlemen, this crisis is unique, and I'm afraid to say, it might get much worse. I would ask you all to remain calm. But I have one request. Doctor, if you're out there, we need you. I don't know what to do. If you can hear me, Doctor. If anyone knows the Doctor, if anyone can find him, the situation has never been more desperate. Help us. Please, Doctor. Help us. God help us.” Harriet says.

Rose bursts into tears, and before even Mickey or Jackie can reach her, Jack has picked her up and pulled her onto his lap, holding her close. She tries to wiggle out of his arms.

“He's gone. The Doctor's gone. He's left me, mum. He's left me, mum.” Jack smiles a sad smile up at Jackie, and hands Rose over to her mother, who holds her close.

“It's all right. I'm sorry.” Jackie says, rubbing Rose’s shoulder and holding her tight. Then all the glass shatters, and Rose sobers up, knowing that even if the Doctor isn’t here, she has an obligation, to him, to her mum, to Mickey, to Jack.

“Mickey, we're going to carry him. Mum, get your stuff, and get some food. We're going.” she orders.

“Where to?” Mickey asks.

“The TARDIS. It's the only safe place on Earth.”

“What're we going to do in there?” Jackie questions.

“Hide.” Rose sighs.

“Is that it?” Jackie and Jack demand at the same time.

“Mum, look in the sky. There's a great, big, alien invasion and I don't know what to do, all right? I've travelled with him, and I've seen all that stuff, but when I'm stuck at home, I'm useless. Now, all we can do is run and hide, and I'm sorry. Now, move.” she and Mickey picked up the Doctor and started to carry. Jackie grabbed a bunch of food, handing some to Jack, and they all started to walk towards the TARDIS.

Rose and Mickey were struggling to hold the Doctor, but Jack was reluctant to offer a hand, because she seemed mad at him, and he didn’t know why.

“Mum, will you just leave that stuff and give us a hand?” Rose demands. Yep, definitely mad at him.

“It's food! You said we need food.”

“Just leave it!” Jack tries to pick up what Jackie left, but he realizes that a better goal is probably getting to the TARDIS before Rose figures out how to fly it and leaves him behind. Actually, now that he thinks about it, Jack probably has to work on his abandonment issues.

“No chance you could fly this thing?” Jack hears Mickey ask as he enters the TARDIS, moving over and hopping onto the beds so that they don’t have to put up with him. He’s seen Rose angry, and as much as he hates the cold shoulder, he’s terrified of her yelling at him.

But, god, does he hate it when she’s angry at him. He thinks she’s beautiful when she’s angry, but like lava, whirlpools, or black holes. Better watched from a distance, or when it’s happening to someone else. Otherwise you might just die. And Jack thinks he’d die if she unleashed that rage at him, he loves her too much for it not to kill him to know that she hated.

He tunes back into the conversation, where they’re talking about Rose flying the TARDIS.

She finishes her previous sentence “Try that again and I think the Universe rips in half.” Jack tries not to laugh. He knows as well as her that for both of them it feels like the universe is torn to shreds, but she’s lucky. They all know that she loves him. She has the comfort of being able to talk about it. All he has is her, and him, and she can’t ever know, and he isn’t the same.

He lets a tear slip out of his eye as he realizes he’s tuned out again.

“Right, here we go. Nice cup of tea.” Jackie is saying, and she’s brought tea, and is pouring some for all of them. She hands Rose and Mickey a cup, and then hands one to Jack, who accepts it, but doesn’t plan to drink it.

“Mmm, the solution to everything.” Rose says, sarcasm slipping through her voice as Jackie hands the still open flask to Mickey.

“Now, stop your moaning. I'll get the rest of the food.” she looks over at Jack, a clear invitation, but he shook his head. Better not. She leaves the TARDIS, and Jack is left alone with people that don’t want him there.

“Tea. Like we're having a picnic while the world comes to an end. Very British.” Mickey laughs “How does this thing work? If it picks up TV, maybe we could see what's going on out there. Maybe we've surrendered. What do you do to it?” He taps it a few times.

“I don't know. It sort of tunes itself.” it stubbornly refuses to do so, and starts playing an odd pattern.

“A fat lot of good that's going to do.” Rose remarks.

“Are you going to be a misery all the time?” Mickey asks, and Rose raises her eyebrows.

“Yes.”

“You should look at it from my point of view, stuck in here with your mum's cooking.” Mickey jokes.

Rose feels a bit upset that he’s trying to cheer her up. She needs it, but she didn’t  _ want _ it. The Doctor is dead, and he’s insulting her mum’s cooking. And she still feels funny, even though she isn’t Bad Wolf anymore. She just feels… more powerful and more knowledgeable somehow.

“Where is she? I'd better give her a hand. It might start raining missiles out there.” she remarks, as if she isn’t upset and scared and trying not to have a mental breakdown and punch everything.

“Tell her anything from a tin, that's fine.” Mickey jokes again, and she wants to strangle him.

“Why don't you tell her yourself?” she says, managing to level out her tone, at least enough that she didn’t seem actually upset with him.

“I'm not that brave.” he says.

“Oh, I don’t know.” she replies, instead of telling him that he’s right, and that’s why she loved the Doctor and Jack over him.

Wait. She loves Jack? Now is  _ not _ the time to discover this.

She walks to the door and opens it, only to freeze in her track. That is  _ not _ the Powell Estate. A Sycorax grabs her and she screams.

“Rose!” Mickey and Jack shout, Mickey dropping the thermos as they run out of the TARDIS.

“Get off! Get off me!” Rose fights as Jack and Mickey run out of the TARDIS, Jack slamming the door behind them. The Sycorax drops her, and Harriet helps her up. She wonders vaguely when Harriet got there.

“Rose. Rose! I've got you. My Lord. Oh, my precious thing. The Doctor, is he with you?”

“No. We're on our own.” she remarks bitterly.

“The yellow girl. She has the clever blue box. Therefore, she speaks for your planet.” the man translated for the Sycorax.

“But she can't!” Harriet explaims, and it turns out that Rose has had enough. She’s traveled with the Doctor for a year, and she’s almost died several times, and she’s been brave and powerful for all of it. And still, people think she’s a little girl who’s only personality trait is being in love with the Doctor.

“Yeah, I can.”

“Don’t you dare.” Mickey says, and yeah, that makes her feel worse. He  _ knows _ she’s powerful. And she knows that he’s just worried, but she’s tired of being fussed over.

“Someone's got to be the Doctor.”

“Do something.” she hears Mickey hiss, and she hears Jack reply, in the same muted tones.

“Listen, man, she’s mad at me, and I’m  _ not _ risking that. And Rose can handle herself. I’ve seen her.”

Maybe she’s not as mad at Jack as she was before.

“They’ll kill you!” Harriet protests, and Rose really doesn’t care that she’s the fucking Prime Minister, she’s also bloody annoying.

“Never stopped him.” She turns to the Sycrorax. Time to bluff. “I, er, I address the Sycorax according to Article Fifteen of the Shadow Proclamation. I command you to leave this world with all the authority of the Slitheen Parliament of Raxacoricofallapatorius, and er, the Gelth Confederacy as er, sanctioned by the Mighty Jagrafess and, oh, the Daleks! Now, leave this planet in peace! In peace.” well, that didn’t go well.

The Sycorax all start laughing, and that really didn’t go well.

“You are very, very funny. And now you're going to die.” the man translates again.

Harriet, Mickey, and Jack all scream and shout, but Sycorax are holding them back.

“Did you think you were clever with your stolen words? We are the Sycorax, we stride the darkness. Next to us you are but a wailing child. If you are the best your planet can offer as a champion-” the man translates, but then the Sycorax starts speaking English.

“Then your world will be gutted-” the Sycorax says, and the man continues to translate, not having noticed yet. “And your people enslaved.”

“Hold on.” the man says. “That’s English.”

“I would never dirty my tongue with your primitive bile.” he snarls, which is rude.

“That's English. Can you hear English?” Rose asks, and the others agree.

“I speak only Sycoraxic!” the Sycorax protests, but no one is listening to him anymore, because Rose has spun around to face the TARDIS.

“If I can hear English, then it's being translated. Which means it's working. Which means” she explains, and the doors burst open.

“Did you miss me?” The Doctor asks with a wink, completely unaware of the fact that two of the people staring at him wanted to both attack him and snog him, maybe at the same time.

The Sycorax snaps his whip, but the Doctor grabs it and pulls it out his hands. “You could have someone's eye out with that.”

“How dare!”

The Doctor doesn’t listen, simply taking another Sycorax’s club and breaking it.

“You just can't get the staff. Now, you, just wait. I'm busy. Mickey, hello! Jack, you shouldn’t be here! And Harriet Jones MP for Flydale North. Blimey, it's like This Is Your Life. Tea! That's all I needed, a good cup of tea! Superheated infusion of free radicals and tannin. Just the thing for healing the synapses. Now, first thing's first. Be honest, how do I look?” he rambles, turning to Rose.

“Er, different.” Rose says, overcome with both emotion and information.

“Good different or bad different?” he asks.

“Just… different.”

“Am I ginger?” he looks serious, even though there is most definitely a bigger threat than his hair.

“ I wanted to be ginger. I've never been ginger. And you, Rose Tyler, fat lot of good you were. You gave up on me. Oh, that's rude. That's the sort of man I am now, am I? Rude. Rude and not ginger.” he wrinkles up his face.

“I'm sorry. Who is this?” Harriet asks.

“I’m the Doctor.”

“He’s the Doctor.”

“But what happened to my Doctor? Or is it a title that's just passed on?”

“I'm him. I'm literally him. Same man, new face. Well, new everything.” he explains.

“But you can’t be.” she says in shock.

“Harriet Jones, we were trapped in Downing Street and the one thing that scared you wasn't the aliens, it wasn't the war, it was the thought of your mother being on her own.” he recalls, and she looks like she might faint from shock. Rose hopes she doesn’t, there’s been a lot of needless fainting in the past 24 hours.

“Did you win?” he asks.

“Landslide majority.”

“If I may interrupt.” The Sycorax says.

“Yes, sorry. Hello, big fellow.” the Doctor says, turning back to the Sycorax.

“Who exactly are you?”

“Well, that’s the big question.”

“I demand to know who you are!”

“I don't know! See, there's the thing. I'm the Doctor, but beyond that, I just don't know. I literally do not know who I am. It's all untested. Am I funny? Am I sarcastic? Sexy? Right old misery? Life and soul? Right handed? Left handed? A gambler? A fighter? A coward? A traitor? A liar? A nervous wreck? I mean, judging by the evidence, I've certainly got a gob. And how am I going to react when I see this, a great big threatening button. A great big threatening button which must not be pressed under any circumstances, am I right? Let me guess. It's some sort of control matrix, hmm? Hold on, what's feeding it?”

He opened up the base of the pillar. “And what've we got here? Blood? Yeah, definitely blood. Human blood. A Positive, with just a dash of iron. Ah, but that means blood control. Blood control! Oh, I haven't seen blood control for years. You're controlling all the A Positives. Which leaves us with a great big stinking problem. Because I really don't know who I am. I don't know when to stop. So if I see a great big threatening button which should never, ever, ever be pressed, then I just want to do this.”

He goes to hit the button, but his hand is stopped midair, and he pauses and studies the phenomenon. It feels like his hand is being held up, not like it’s hit something, which means he could probably still hit the button if he tried hard enough. That meant it probably wasn’t a force field. He stopped. Rose, exposed to the time vortex for a long amount of time. Rose, who had had everything under her control. Rose, who wasn’t bound to give up everything, and Rose who wouldn’t let him hit a button that could kill people. Well, he knew it wouldn’t. She didn’t.

He turned to face her. “Rose, it isn’t going to kill them. It can’t.” his hand slammed down onto the button, and everyone stepped back from the ledge.

“You killed them!” a man he doesn’t know yells, and the Doctor is mildly irritated. He just said it wouldn’t kill them.

“What do you think, big fellow? Are they dead?”

“We allow them to live.” the Sycorax says, and he scoffs.

“Allow? You've no choice. I mean, that's all blood control is. A cheap bit of voodoo. Scares the pants off you, but that's as far as it goes. It's like hypnosis. You can hypnotise someone to walk like a chicken or sing like Elvis. You can't hypnotise them to death. Survival instinct's too strong.”

“Blood control was just one form of conquest. I can summon the armada and take this world by force.”

“Well, yeah, you could, yeah, you could do that, of course you could. But why? Look at these people. These human beings. Consider their potential. From the day they arrive on the planet and blinking step into the sun, there is more to see than can ever be seen. More to do than. No, hold on. Sorry, that's The Lion King. But the point still stands. Leave them alone!”

“Or what?” the Sycorax taunts.

“Or-” the Doctor reaches out and grabs a sword “I challenge you.”

The Sycorax laugh.

“Oh, that struck a chord. Am I right that the sanctified rules of combat still apply?”

“You stand as this world's champion.” the Sycorax states.

“Thank you. I've no idea who I am, but you just summed me up.” the Doctor grins cockily, peeling off the dressing gown and throwing it to Rose. “So, you accept my challenge? Or are you just a-” he snarls an insult in Sycoraxic, causing the Sycorax to accept the challenge.

“For the planet?”

“For the planet.”

The swords clash together.

“Look out!” Rose and Jack scream at the same time.

“Oh, yeah, that helps. Wouldn't have thought of that otherwise, thanks.” he mocks sarcastically, leading the Sycorax up a tunnel. “Bit of fresh air?” they step out onto the deck, and the Sycorax pushes the Doctor to the edge. Rose and Jack step forward in concern, and the Doctor notes this.

“Stay back! Invalidate the challenge and he wins the planet.” he warns, as he’s driven down, and cuts his hand off, along with the sword.

“You cut my hand off!” the Doctor complains, and the Sycorax cheers. “And now I know what sort of man I am. I'm lucky. Because quite by chance I'm still within the first fifteen hours of my regeneration cycle, which means I've got just enough residual cellular energy to do this.” the stub at the end of his arm started changing, a new hand bulging out of it.

“Witchcraft!”

The Doctor pushes himself and grins. “Time Lord.”

“Doctor!” Rose called, tossing him another sword.

“Oh, so I'm still the Doctor, then?” he says, feelinging a giddy happy feeling at the thought.

“No arguments from me!”

“Ask Jack the same!” he tells her, before directing his attention back to the Sycorax.

“Want to know the best bit? This new hand? It's a fighting hand!” the Doctor moved expertly, disarming the Sycorax and leaving him on his stomach. “I win.”

“Kill me then.”

“I'll spare your life if you'll take this Champion's command. Leave this planet, and never return. What do you say?”

“Yes.”

“Swear on the blood of your species.” he demands.

“I swear.”

“There we are, then. Thanks for that. Cheers, big fellow.” he grins.

“Bravo!” Harriet cheers.

“That says it all. Bravo!” Rose exclaims.

“Bravo.” Jack says softly, hanging back.

“Ah, not bad for a man in his jim-jams.” he says, letting Rose help him put his dressing gown on. “Very Arthur Dent. Now, there was a nice man.” he rummages around the pockets, pulling out a fruit. “Hold on, what have I got in here? A satsuma. Ah, that friend of your mothers. He does like his snacks doesn't he? But doesn't that just sum up Christmas? You go through all those presents and right at the end, tucked away at the bottom, there's always one stupid old satsuma. Who wants a satsuma?”

He chucks the satsuma at the control, opening a panel of the wing and hitting the Sycorax, who falls down, holding a sword. Rose realizes that the alien had been trying to kill the Doctor from behind.

“No second chances. I'm that sort of a man.” he says, stepping into the center of the ship and addressing the crowd. “By the ancient rites of combat, I forbid you to scavenge here for the rest of time. And when you go back to the stars and tell others of this planet, when you tell them of it's riches, it's people, it's potential. When you talk of the Earth, then make sure that you tell them this. It is defended.”

They beam down to Earth. “Where are we?” Rose asks, moving close to the Doctor.

Jack remembers that Rose is mad at him, and he remembers the Doctor telling him he shouldn’t be here. He lingers in the back, knowing that he’s finished his time with them. They won’t want him there. They’ll probably go through a period of awkwardness before they realize they’re happily in love, and they’ll travel through the stars as a happy couple, while Jack is left on Earth, to find new people.

He knows he can find new people, he isn’t an idiot, and he knows how to interact with people. It’s always been his gift. It still feels horrid, knowing that the people you love more than you’ve ever loved anything only love each other, and not you.

He tunes back into the conversation. “It's a message from Torchwood. They say they're ready.” the man said.

Over to the side, Jackie was scolding Rose, but Jack focused on the Prime Minister and the man.

“Tell them to fire.” Harriet says.

Jack moves forward before realizing it won’t do anything.

“Fire at will.” the man says.

Above them, the ship exploded.

“What is that? What's happening?” Rose asks.

“That was murder.” the Doctor says with anger, and if Jack had had any doubts on if the Doctor was the same person, they lifted.

“That was defence. It's adapted from alien technology. A ship that fell to Earth ten years ago.” Harriet defended.

“But they were leaving.”

“You said yourself, Doctor, they'd go back to the stars and tell others about the Earth. I'm sorry, Doctor, but you're not here all the time. You come and go. It happened today. Mister Llewellyn and the Major, they were murdered. They died right in front of me while you were sleeping. In which case we have to defend ourselves.” she defends, and as solid as she might think it, it makes Jack angry. He doesn’t say it, but it isn’t fair that she thinks she can kill them without consequence when their backs are turned.

“Britain's Golden Age.” the Doctor mocks.

“It comes with a price.” no matter how angry Jack is, he has to admire her for not breaking under the Doctor’s glare.

“I gave them the wrong warning. I should've told them to run as fast as they can, run and hide because the monsters are coming. The human race.”

“Those are the people I represent. I did it on their behalf.”

“Then I should have stopped you.”

“What does that make you, Doctor? Another alien threat?”

“Don't challenge me, Harriet Jones, because I'm a completely new man. I could bring down your Government with a single word.” he warns.

“You're the most remarkable man I've ever met, but I don't think you're quite capable of that.” Harriet replies.

“No, you're right. Not a single word, just six.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Six words.”

“Stop it!”

“Six.” the Doctor taunts, walking over to the man and leaning down. He whispers something softly in his ear, before walking off with Rose, Jackie, and Mickey. Jack stays, leaning against a lamppost as he watches Harriet throw a fit.

He isn’t wanted, so he’ll cherish the Doctor’s work before he goes. One last time, see what the Doctor can do. He wanders back to the Estate and looks up. They’re probably having Christmas dinner, and he’s down here. He ducks behind a tree as the Doctor comes out of the TARDIS, wearing a new suit. Probably for the best, he didn’t look like the type of man to wear a leather jacket. Not that Jack didn’t miss the jacket.

He remembers getting drunk with the Doctor once, and even though Rose was there too, it’s the Doctor he remembers, because the man had let Jack push him against a wall and kiss him, holding on to that jacket. Jack wonders if he can steal it. It wasn’t like the Doctor even remembered it, or Rose. It had always been them, anyway, never Jack.

They’re happy, or as happy as they can be, up there with their food and crackers.

He watches as they come outside to look at the snow. He stays far enough away to only hear their words as faint whispers, but he hears the Doctor say “This isn’t snow, it’s ash.” and isn’t that how all beautiful things turn out. Ash. Well, not Rose, and not the Doctor, not as long as Jack lives. They’ll never be ash. But him, and the snow, and Rose’s humanity - not like he missed the way the Doctor looked at her when he couldn’t press the button.

He looks at Rose, drifting closer, still trying to stay hidden.

“Yeah, I thought, because you changed you might not want me anymore.” Rose admits. She really doesn’t understand how much the Doctor loves her.

“Oh, I'd love you to come.” the Doctor smiles at her.

Somehow, some way, Jack is still holding out the insane hope that they’re going to mention him. He knows they aren’t.

“You're never going to stay, are you?” Mickey asks, and Jack looks at him sadly. He knows how Mickey feels. Rose Tyler is a dangerous woman to love, because her home is with the stars and the Doctor. At least Jack got that.

“There's just so much out there. So much to see. I've got to.”

“Yeah.” Mickey says, softly and sadly.

“Well, I reckon you're mad, the pair of you. It's like you go looking for trouble.” Jack would like her, if he got to talk to her more. She reminds him of Rose, which makes him sure that that’s why the Doctor fears her, and makes him even more sure that the Doctor respects her.

“Trouble's just the bits in-between. It's all waiting out there, Jackie, and it's brand new to me. All those planets, and creatures and horizons. I haven't seen them yet! Not with these eyes. And it is going to be fantastic!” Jack can’t see his face, but he knows how the Doctor looks, eyes lit up, and a wild, beaming, grin on his face.

His Doctor, Jack thinks, mimicking Harriet, although he knows full well that the Doctor is Rose’s.

“That hand of yours still gives me the creeps.” Rose says, slipping her hand into it. “So, where're we going to go first?” she asks.

The Doctor points up at the sky. “ Er, that way. No, hold on. That way.

“That way?”

“Hmm?”

“Yeah, that way.” they step into the TARDIS, hands linked.

Whatever bit of hope Jack’s brain had foolishly given him vanished like water on a frying pan, turned into smoke. He tries not to cry.

The door to the TARDIS banged open again. “Have you forgotten something?” Jackie asks.

“Oh shut up. Jack! We’re going to be late if you can’t get to the TARDIS on time.”

“Yes, mother!” Jack calls back, grinning. He jogs over to the TARDIS and manages to make it inside before breaking down sobbing.

“That’s dramatic.” the Doctor remarks.

“Don’t be rude!” Rose scolds him. “We thought you were  _ dead _ for a solid bit of time there. He didn’t even get to cry.”

“You know men can cry, right?” the Doctor asks him.

“You asshole.” Jack says, wiping the tears from his eyes.

“I’ve been called that a lot of time, but I don’t think that makes it any more true.”

“See?” Jack says to Rose. “Asshole.”

“He isn’t wrong.”

“Oh, don’t gang up on me!”

They all laugh, and suddenly it’s like they’re back to their old selves again, even with the Doctor having a different face.

“Doctor,” Rose asks, “Why did you tell me before you pressed the button?”

“I didn’t want you to worry. You didn’t know me.” he lies.

He knows it’s a lie, but he can’t bring himself to tell her the truth. How would he even say it? ‘You might be inhuman due to swallowing the time vortex’? Also, why did she get telekinesis? He didn’t have telekinesis. Unfair.

Judging by the look Jack gives him, he knows.

“Don’t lie to her.” Jack growls, and for a second the Doctor considers saying that Jack’s at risk of being kicked off the TARDIS, before remembering him crying.

“I’m sorry? Doctor, tell me the truth.”

“Fine!” the Doctor said, irritation in his voice until he turned around to receive two similar death glare. Oh  _ why _ couldn’t he have a better type. “The time vortex doesn’t just  _ leave _ the body. It messes up your cells. You’re probably, what? A quarter Time Lord now? That’s the truth, and it isn’t pretty!”

“What?”

“It isn’t ideal, but you’ve been spared a few things. You won’t have the vortex in your head for example, but you can most likely still regenerate, have mild telepathy, and telekinesis, which is  _ unfair _ because I don’t have telekinesis, and my telepathy is touch telepathy at best.

“What?” Rose asked, and the Doctor opened his mouth to explain again, but Rose had fallen to the floor sobbing. “Why?”

“Explain  _ after _ we comfort her.” Jack says, and the Doctor nods as they both approach her. Jack reaches her first, wrapping his arms around her. She curls into him, sobbing into his shoulder. The Doctor reaches out, tries to set a comforting hand onto her back, but he’s repelled like he was from the button.

“Rose.” Jack says. “He’s an asshole, but he didn’t do this. He’s protecting you, like he’ll always protect you.”

Rose lets the Doctor rest his hand on her shoulder, but she’s upset. Somehow, she had grown so attached to being human. She would meet other races, and she’d always be the human. It wasn’t Lady Cassandra level obsession, but she was the human. No matter what, she was the girl that the Doctor joked about being human, she was the companion.

And now she’s not. She’s part Time Lord. And she did it to save the Doctor and Jack, and she would do it again. Maybe what’s what makes her so upset. She would sacrifice her humanity for them. Again and again and again.

“You’re still a human.” Jack tells her. “You might have some Time Lord weird things, like telepathy, and telekinesis, and super strength, but you, Rose Tyler, your mind is human. I know that your mind is human, because you are splendidly human.”

“You’re human too.” Rose says through small gasps.

He wants to tell her that he probably isn’t, not anymore, but saying he isn’t human because he died twice and is still alive probably won’t help her tears.

“I am. We can even make fun of the Doctor, the only non-human on the TARDIS. On the team.” he places a hand under her chin and lifts her head up, brushing the tears away from her eyes. “It doesn’t change you. You’re still Rose.”

“Yeah.” she smiles, and it isn’t happy, but it’s a smile, and the Doctor’s hand is still pressed onto her back, not being thrown away. Jack considers this the best win.

“So!” the Doctor exclaims. “Where should we go?”

“Can we just rest?” Rose asks, and it’s the last request that the Doctor expects to come from her, but there it is. He looks at her, and she looks at him. Her eyes are puffy and red, her eyes still watery. She looks so tired, so upset.

“Yeah.” he says. “We can just rest.”

The smile Rose gives might not be happy, but it sure lights up the room.

The Doctor is in love with her. He knows it deep in his soul. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he knows it. He also knows he’s in love with Jack. At first he thought it was just thrill, mild attraction, but he knows it now, ever since they kissed in a bar and he pretended to forget it.

He also knows he isn’t going to tell them. He’s an nine hundred year old alien, and Rose is a (partly) human 20 year old, while Jack is human who probably doesn’t know what a committed relationship is. Sorry, that was rude. He issues a silent apology to Jack in his head.

He won’t, or maybe can’t tell them. He isn’t the other Doctor anymore, he’s on his, what?, tenth? regeneration now. He doesn’t wear the leather jacket anymore, his hair is longer and spiky-er now, not cropped close to his head. His height isn’t much different, at least. Maybe an inch taller. The new teeth are weird. But that’s not the point.

If Jack and Rose were ever in love with the Doctor, it wasn’t him. It was him from before. They didn’t look at him yet and see the Doctor, they had traveled with him for too long.

He didn’t like that, but it was the sad and unfortunate truth. Even if his love was still there, and if he was lucky enough that their love, if they ever had it, was still there, wasn’t for him. He had seen it happen to Time Lords in love with other species before. He had them by his side still, though, and maybe, maybe he can make that enough for him. If he tries. Because that’s what he did before.

He watches as Jack helps Rose lie down, before lying down himself in a close bed.

“Coming, Doctor?” Jack calls, only the hint of innuendo in his voice, which was mainly filled with genuine concern.

“I think I’ve had enough sleep for now, don’t you?” he calls back, smiling even though he doesn’t feel happy.

He should be happy that they’re even still coming, even though he’s not the Doctor they know and love.

He should stop using the word love. He knows they love him, of course they do. But it isn’t the love he has for them, romantic.

He wants to take the TARDIS somewhere new, get caught up in an adventure to forget all about his love, but they look so peaceful, asleep, and he can’t bear to wake them. He doesn’t want to be able to bear that.

He slips away, looking for the library, trying to find a book to get lost in. try to forget his feelings for the night before he can go back to the drug called adventure and adrenaline.

He wonders if he still has the same taste in books.

When Rose wakes up Jack is already sitting up, running his fingers through his black hair, rumpled and upset. He looks pretty.

She watches him, smile and messy hair shining in light until he notices her, and he grins, and she grins back.

“I think I’ve got all the crying out of my system for a lifetime.” Rose jokes, knowing full well that they both have plenty of tears left for the Doctor.

“Where’s the Doctor?” Jack says, scanning the room.

“Could be anywhere. It’s bigger on the inside.”

“Yeah, we know that,” he says, standing up. “You want the bathroom first, or should I go?”

“Don’t use up all the hot water.” she warns him, and he laughs, back to the typical beat of their lives.

“How can I? It’s a spaceship!”

“And somehow you still manage to, Jack. Go on, get presentable. Maybe there will be some people you can introduce yourself to wherever we’re going.” she misses the way his smile falters and he twitches.

“Is there anywhere without them?”

“If there is, the Doctor will find it. Go on, use up all the hot water.” she shoos him, beaming. Even with all the tears yesterday, she’s happy. She’s in the TARDIS with the Doctor and Jack, and they’ll travel space and time. The perfect life.

She’ll have to cope with the fact she’s quarter Time Lord and love with the both of them at some point, but she’s British. She can put anything off as long as she has tea.

She pulls out her phone as she waits for Jack to be finished, which always takes forever, calling up Shareen as she always does when she wants a normal conversation. Despite the fact they haven’t seen each other in forever, and that Shareen should probably have stopped being friends with Rose, she’s always excited to talk to her, which means Rose can just sit back and listen to her prattle about which neighbors are fighting or fucking, about the cute boys and girls and assorted others that come into the shop, about her landlord, or whatever is on Shareen’s mind. The girl doesn’t need Rose to actually talk to have a conversation, which is what feels so normal about listening to her. Rose lies back on the bed, listening to her, when Jack comes back in.

“Your turn. There might not be any shampoo left.”

“Jack, I am on the phone!” she says, before realizing that she is on the phone, which means that Shareen can hear her, and will gossip about what she hears.

“Rose Tyler!” Shareen crows, and there she goes. “Is that a  _ boy _ ? There are boys where you are?” Rose really should ask Shareen where she thinks Rose is.

“Yes, there are boys. Jack’s my friend.”

“Friend or  _ friend _ .”

“Just a friend, Shareen.” Rose sighs.

“He’s still in the room, isn’t he?”

“He’s still in the room, yes. But that doesn’t change the fact that we’re just friends. And, no, you can’t talk to him. I’m not having two of my friends flirt while I sit idly by.”

“Just answer this yes or no: do you have a crush on him?”

Rose rolls her eyes, but she might as well answer honestly. “Yeah.”

Shareen squeals on the other end, “You do!  _ And _ the guy you were traveling with?”

“Oh, Georgia has two boyfriends now?” Rose fake pauses. “Yeah, it’s called polyamory. That’s what I am, remember? Polyamourus and pansexual?”

“Good lying. Also I’m bi, you don’t have to remind me what pansexual is.”

“Yeah, thanks. Oh, on the subject of queerness,” Rose says veering off topic, not wanting to talk about her crushes, “can you remind my mum to cancel my estrogen shipments. I get my shots here, I don’t need her to keep them.”

“Yeah, of course!” Shareen assured her. “Now, go do what you have to do with this Jack.” Rose could almost see her giving an over exaggerated wink.

“Bye, Shareen.”

“Bye, Rose!” the phone beeped, and Rose set it back down on the bed.

“Why didn’t you let me flirt?” Jack fake pouted as Rose gathered up her clothes.

“Because I apparently have too many friends who have the personality trait of ‘flirt’, I’m not going to introduce you. What a disaster that would be. You’d become fast friends and no bar in London or the entire universe would be safe from you.”

“That sounds fun.”

“I’m sure it does. That’s why it’s off limits.” Rose slips out of the room and heads to the bathroom.

Jack heads to the control room, where the Doctor is already messing with the control panels.

“Hello, Jack!” he greets with a grin. “Where shall we go? Past? Future? Take a bold risk and go to the present?”

“Not the present.” Jack protests, laughing. “Anything but that.”

The Doctor laughs, and Jack is hit with a wave of pining, but he shakes it off. Now is not the time. “So? Future? Past? What pulls your fancy?”

“Why don’t you ask Rose?”

“Rose always gets to choose, and you’re here now. Come on, any preference, or do you want me to flip a coin?”

“I think I’ve had a bit too much of the future for now.”

The Doctor looks at him apologetically, but Jack just shrugs. He doesn’t  _ seem _ to be upset, so the Doctor doesn’t press.

Jack leans back and watches the man as he presses the buttons and flips the switches to take them back. He might be a new man, but Jack can’t deny that he’s physically attractive still.

And he is the Doctor. Jack’s not about to start crying because the other Doctor is gone, not when that one’s right there.

Maybe later he will, but out of relief more than sadness, because the Doctor is  _ there _ and not dead along with the rest of them.

Also he should really work out why he isn’t dead and doesn’t seem capable of dying.

The new Doctor has so obvious differences from the old one, differences in more than hair and face. His hands are thinner and longer, and look different flying over the dashboard. His legs are longer too, even if there doesn’t seem to be much difference in height.

But some things are still the same. The odd mix of concentration and glee on his face as he drove, the scramble of it. Jack is still in love with him.

And of course, that’s the problem, isn’t it? He loves Rose, and he loves the Doctor, and they love each other. It’s not hard to ignore the fact Rose is polyamourus, that only brings more pain, because she wouldn’t love him.

Would she?

Rose comes out into the control room, clean and dressed for an adventure. “Where are we going?” she asks, moving to stand next to Jack, pulling him out of his thoughts.

“To the past!” the Doctor grinned, thankfully not saying that Jack doesn’t want to go to the future yet. Jack wouldn’t mind Rose knowing, but it would be awkward. He doesn’t want to tell her that he died twice, especially because he has a good idea why he’s still alive, and he doesn’t think she’d like it.

“We’re all a bit sick of the future, yeah?” Rose says, leaning back next to Jack, who grins.

“Yeah.”

“Where are we going, Doctor?” Rose calls out to the man, who just grins.

“Who knows! Where would be the fun in that?” his grin looks like a madman, and for a moment, Rose just wants to go up there and snog him till he can’t talk.

Not that she’s going to. But still. It’s weird, she still misses the other Doctor, but she still knows this one is hers. And she’s already not missing him as much, because she’s in the TARDIS, with Jack, and the Doctor is  _ there _ . She does regret never kissing him, she thinks she’d like to compare the difference if she ever kisses this one.

Jack, who did kiss the other Doctor, feels the same way. He wants to put his hands on the new one’s face and body, feeling the differences. He won’t, and he can’t. But he wants to.

They both want to test out this new Doctor with their hands and tongues, lips breathing over skin. They both want to see if he loves them.

But neither is going to, neither will ever.

The TARDIS stops with the familiar whooshing of the engines, and the Doctor taps the scanner.

“The 20s! In America! I love the 20s! Except for well… a lot actually. So!” he claps his hands loudly, scaring Rose and Jack. “Shall we get dressed up, or no?”

Rose looks over at Jack with a grin. “Oh absolutely.”

They dart to the wardrobe, where Rose immediately finds a pink flapper dress. Well, she says pink. It’s a peach color, with black tulle on top.

“Turn around!” she commands Jack, and he does as she pulls off her clothes and pulls on the dress.

“Back around.” she says, and he spins around, grabbing her arms. “You look gorgeous.”

“You flirt.” she teases back with a faint blush. “Come on, get dressed. I need a date.”

“Not the Doctor?”

“Does he  _ look _ like he’d fit in the 20s as dapper? If he’s anything like the old one, he isn’t going to even change that brown suit.”

That sobers them up for a moment, but they snap back, and Jack takes a suit off the hook. It’s black with a dark blue shirt and Rose looks at it and grins.

“Perfect.” she says, and Jack smiles.

“Your turn to turn around.” he says, spinning his finger in the air, and she does, revelling in the way the skirt twirls. She taps her fingers on her thigh until Jack grabs her shoulder and twirls her around her.

“Very dapper.” she laughs. “You look nice.”

Jack grins his cocky grin and offers his arm to her. She slips her hand into the crook of his elbow, and he leads her out of the wardrobe. Her heels and his shoes tap on the metal of the TARDIS, and the Doctor turns around when he hears the sound.

“You look fantastic!” he scrunches up his face and shakes his head. “No, that’s not my word anymore. Anyway, you do look brilliant!” he claps his hands. “You ready to go?” he pushes open the door to the TARDIS, and they step out into the loud world.

The Doctor leads the way, as Rose and Jack follow, still arm in arm.

“Nothing better happen.” Jack says as they scan the streets. A woman is trying to flirt with the Doctor, who is kindly trying to refuse her. Jack steps forward.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he says with a smile, “but I don’t think you’re going to make much progress with this one.”

The woman looks scandalized and hurries away, and Rose snorts. “You could have said  _ anything _ , Jack. You didn’t have to say  _ that _ .”

“Oh, but it got her to run. Come on, Doctor, take Rose’s other arm. The streets are wide enough.”

The Doctor moves towards them and slips his arm into Rose’s, who makes a show of letting the two men lead her down the street.

It isn't a usual arrangement, and they get a few odd stares, but they aren't usual people, and they made a living off of odd stares. They bath in them, like gods in worship.

Also there is a certain euphoria in knowing that you were out of time, and that someone may remember you forever and never know you weren’t supposed to be there. It felt sneaky, almost.

“So, what shall we do?” the Doctor asks. “The nineteen twenties, we can do anything that doesn’t involve alcohol or queerness.”

“But all my best plans involve alcohol and queerness.” Jack complains “You’ve cut off all my best ideas.”

“Come off it, Jack, this is New York. There’s probably a gay speakeasy somewhere around here.” Rose scolds him.

“I hate when you’re right.”

Rose leans towards him, breath brushing over his cheek. “No you don’t.”

“No I don’t.”

“But where would we find one?” the Doctor points out.

“Jack’s like a sniffer dog for queer things, I’m sure he can find one.”

“Rose, you need to be more clear on whether the things you say are insults or not.” Jack laughs. “Because I personally consider that a compliment.”

“We all would.” the Doctor says.

They wander the streets a bit more till nightfall, relishing in the fact that the small amount of American change they have can buy them things. All three share a milkshake, and Jack and Rose jokingly fight over the last bit.

By the time it’s dark and the streets are emptying out, they’ve switched positions, and the Doctor is in between Rose and Jack, all their hands gripped tightly.

Rose isn’t wrong about Jack being able to find queer spots quickly, although he’s probably more motivated by the idea of getting drunk after everything that’s happened.

Scrap the probably. Drunk means he can flirt without pain, without looking over at the Doctor and Rose everytime the stranger flirts back. Drunk means he can forget he died twice. Drunk means he can pretend he doesn’t want his companions, at least for the night.

It’s hard for the Doctor to get drunk, unless he drinks ten times the amount of alcohol fine for an adult or straight up snorts ginger. Jack considers getting him drunk, but that’s too manipulative, too  _ wrong _ for him to consider for even more than a second.

They get inside rather easily for strangers, but once they do it’s not hard to mingle in the crowd. The Doctor hangs back in a corner, sipping some drink he knows won’t do anything.

Jack’s already found a target, a man that bears a striking and not accidental resemblance to his old self. They’re flirting at the bar, trying to one up each other. A butch has Rose in a corner, but the girl isn’t not enjoying it, and is instead flirting back.

The Doctor feels alone. A few people try to flirt with him, but he calmly refuses them, offers to get them a drink but nothing more. A few of them are instant, but he isn’t stronger than humans for nothing, and it takes a small shove to get them to back off most of the time.

Until another man comes up. The Doctor politely refuses him, he’s here because Jack and Rose want to be here, not because of any other reason. But the man doesn’t let up.

“Come on, darling. Nothing big, just-” the Doctor cuts him off before he can get descriptive.

“I said no.” he’s well aware the man has him cornered against the wall, and that even if he gets away, he isn’t the size that any one could expect to fight him.

He glares at Jack, but the man is too busy to notice. You’d think he’s be fine tuned to the Doctor by now.

His only other hope is Rose, who can destroy anyone who tries to hurt her friends, vocally or physically. He’s seen her defeat an alien that looked like a pro wrestler with her voice and a baseball bat.

But he can’t see Rose from where he is, and he doesn’t want to get in a fight, so he’s stuck, which isn’t fun.

Until he isn’t stuck, and the man is thrown forcefully back from him and Rose steps forwards. It’s obvious from the shaken look on her face that she didn’t mean to do that, and she looks on the edge of tears, but that doesn’t stop her from starting to yell at the man.

“He said to get back and leave him alone, do you have  _ ears _ ? You respect him, or you answer to me, and I’m not going to be gentle or kind when it comes to you hurting my friends. I’m not a pacifist like him.”

The man gets up and backs away and oh  _ yeah _ telekinesis isn’t normally accepted in modern day society, let alone the 1920s. The Doctor darts forward and grabs Rose’s hand. “Run.” he says, and pulls her along, pausing only for a second to detach Jack from someone before hauling them out of the bar and towards the TARDIS. Jack is barely sober enough to run, which is unfortunate, but they mainly just committed magic in a bar, which isn’t fun.

The Doctor drags them into an alley and pushes them against the wall so they won’t be visible.

“Jack, sober up. Rose, I know it’s upsetting but I really need you to cry later.” he rests his hands on their arms.

“Yeah. Yeah.” Rose wipes her eyes and stands up straighter.

“Good. Jack, how did you even possibly drink that much? Ok, I’m just going to drag you.”

He doesn’t even object, so the Doctor just raises his eyebrows and helps Jack stand up. Rose moves to the other side and helps carry him. They go out the other side of the alley, and they move to the police box, which is thankfully quite close.

When the door is unlocked and they’re all inside, Rose breaks down crying. She doesn’t like this, the way she knows everything that’s happening in a half mile radius in the back of her head, the way she’s stronger and doesn’t know how to control it, the way her emotions manifest in force fields and telekinesis. It’s uncomfortable and awkward, and she hates it. It’s wrong, and the worst part is they can’t comfort her. The Doctor doesn’t know how it feels, he’s a Time Lord, he has all this and more. And Jack can’t imagine how it feels, because he’s just human, and it’s awful.

“I can live forever.” Jack finally says, which snaps Rose out of her crying and self pity.

“ _ What? _ ” she asks.

“I can’t die. I died and then you brought me back to life, and then I went hurtling through the time vortex unprotected and I died and now I’m here and I can’t die and I don’t know whether to be upset or not.” Jack’s lying on his back on the floor, staring at the ceiling. His voice is dead, not showing any emotion. “I wonder if I can die of alcohol poisoning.”

The Doctor has dropped to his knees beside Jack, and Rose can tell he’s trying not to study the man. So can Jack. It’s not like the Doctor’s being subtle about it, but he’s not actually studying Jack, which is as close to decorum as he gets.

“And,” Jack adds, and they both realize that he’s completely lost his filter, which they’ve never seen him do before, “I am completely and hopelessly in love with both of you, and you two love each other and not me, and I am doomed to eternity travelling around in this spaceship with people who love each other and not me.”

The Doctor doesn’t even glance at Rose before he kisses Jack. He then realizes that he shouldn’t be kissing someone who isn’t in their right mind and pulls away. “We’ll talk about this in the morning.” he says, and subsequently runs off and disappears, leaving Rose to deal with Jack, who has completely passed out.

“There’s not even a fucking morning on the TARDIS.” Rose grumbles, lifting up and Jack and dragging him to the bedroom and lying him down. She pulls off his shoes, tie, jacket, and button up shirt, before pulling up the covers. She turns around and wiggles out of the flapper dress, pulling on some pyjamas before lying down. She isn’t going to be able to sleep. She stares at the ceiling until her eyes get heavy and she’s regrettably pulled into sleep.

She dreams about them. She’s standing on a beach, and they’re there too, but she can’t touch them. In it, she knows that they never told her they loved her, and she never told them. That hurts. “I love you.” she says. They start to say it, but before they can finish they disappear.

She wakes up with a gasp. Jack is still in the bed next to her, nursing a headache. She tosses a bottle of pills at him, like nothing that happened actually happened.

“Did someone kiss me last night?” he groans, swallowing two of them dry.

“A lot of people, do you want specifics? Ugh, I didn’t even drink and I feel horrid.” she grabs the first clothes she can find form her clean clothes, not caring if they’re going to match or not. “We’ve got to talk, both of us and the Doctor, so get dressed.”

“Don’t I need a shower?” he asks.

“Yeah, probably. You can have the bathroom  _ after _ me this time.” it takes an effort to keep up the banter, and the minute she’s out of the room her eyes start to water as she’s hit with the full force of everything that’s happened in less than 72 hours. She turned into Bad Wolf, the Doctor died, the Doctor regenerated, Jack became immortal, everything with the Sycorax, she’s inhuman, and Jack’s in love with them. That one makes her heart skip a beat, because Jack, who she had thought she could never have along with the Doctor, is in love with her  _ and _ the Doctor, and judging by the Doctor kissing him last night, the Doctor at least  _ likes _ Jack, and she’s fairly confident that he likes her.

She showers and gets ready in a hazy state of euphoria and sadness, which isn’t a normal or pleasant feeling. Her emotions are a jumble, like someone tossed all human emotions into a blender and made a smoothie.

The clothes are lucky enough to match, and her hair only needs mild brushing before she leaves the bathroom and knocks on the door to tell Jack that he can have the bathroom. He groans, and she pats his back when he leaves the room.

“Maybe you’ll feel better after a shower.” she says, knowing full well that he won’t. “Meet us in the dining room afterwards.”

“Yeah.” he says, highly doubting it.

When Rose enters the dining room the Doctor grins at her, and puts food that she’s almost certain he didn’t actually cook down on the table.

“How’d you make this?” she says, taking a bite and noticing that it isn’t over or undercooked.

“The TARDIS has somehow learned to cook.” he doesn’t add that it’s most likely because the time vortex ran through the head of someone who knew how to cook.

“So, do you love Jack back?” Rose asks, as if it’s common breakfast conversation to have over a glass of orange juice.

The Doctor freezes, but he nods slowly. “Yeah. I do. Do you?”

“Yeah.” she admits. “Do you love me?”

The Doctor figures it’s better to be sitting for this one, and he collapses into the chair across from her. “Yes.”

“Okay, I love you too.” She’s too busy figuring out the works to even make it mean something. Everyone knows she loves him, it shouldn’t be a surprise. “So it should work if you’re willing to date both of us- why’s your mouth open?”

“You love me?”

It’s an inopportune time for Jack to enter, so of course he does. “You finally confessed!” he congratulates her. “The worst kept secret in the galaxy and he didn’t even know.”

“Shut up and sit down.” Rose tells him, and he immediately obeys her, flopping into the empty chair. “Okay, apparently the Doctor is surprised, which means you’re going to be too, and I can’t deal with this but here we go. I’m in love with the Doctor, The Doctor’s in love with me, we’re both in love with you, and you’re in love with us.”

Jack falls out of his chair.

“Handled that better than I thought.” Rose says, downing the rest of her orange juice. “So, you both know what polyamory is. And I want to date both of you, because I’m in love with both of you. So, if your brains could reboot, that would be nice.”

They blink at her, and this is taking longer than she thought it would, so she throws pieces of her bacon at both of them, which causes them to finally speak.

“You’re in love with me?” they ask at the same time, although the Doctor is talking specifically to Rose, while Jack is speaking to the both of them.

“Yeah. Jack, last night you said it when you were pissed, if you’re wondering how this came about.”

“I never lose my filter.”

“Yeah, well you sure did. So, are we becoming a ‘thing’ or not?” she’s impatient, mainly because now there’s the semblance of hope for her, and for them, and for all of them.

“Yes please.” Jack says eagerly, and the Doctor just nods. “Verbal consent.” Jack reminds him.

“Yeah, I’d like that a lot. Yeah.”

“I’m going to kiss you.” Rose states, and she pulls the Doctor in by his collar, kissing him hard. When she pulls away from him, she kisses Jack too.

“Okay, I’m going to kiss the Doctor now.” Jack says before the Doctor pulls him close and kisses him.

“That was… good.” Jack says after they’re done. “Good.”

“I’ve heard you get more descriptive.”

“Yeah, but this is the first time it’s been actual, you know,  _ love _ .”

“Fair point. Now, let’s do something, shall we? A date, that’s how most relationships begin.” the Doctor prattles on. “Future, past. Rose, do we have to tell Jackie? I really don’t want to tell Jackie.”

“Yes, we have to tell my mum,” Rose says. “Of course. We can go a few months so it doesn’t seem like it happened so soon, but we have to tell her.”

“I like your mum.” Jack says. “Why are we scared of her?”

“You’re dating me now, Jack, you need to be very scared of my mum. Now, I think the Doctor said date night?”


End file.
